The Day It Came to Earth

If 1986's "Night of The Creeps" were a parody of a specific movie, it would be this one. Actually this film is considered a bit of a parody itself in that it was made in 1979, but feels much older. Really, it does not feel cutting edge in any way. The characters may be send-ups of more innocent 50's and 60's teens, but it's not done in a clever way. The effect is just that of over-acting and it's all in all a very bad movie. Extremely low body-count as well.

I'm a little baffled by both the people here who say it's a terrible movie and those who say it's a "good-bad" movie, i.e. hilariously campy. What no one seems to get, and which is pretty obvious to me, is that this film was intended as satire (albeit fairly low-key satire) of movies like "The Horror of Party Beach" and such. The creature is deliberately lumbering and ridiculous, the meteor FX laughable, the college kids played as comedic retro airheads who are about as depthed as Archie & Jughead & gang. It's not a particularly GOOD spoof, but clearly nothing here is meant to be taken seriously, let alone be scary. Maybe if the movie were unintentionally bad it would have been funnier to me...instead it was just mildly diverting at best and unintentionally not-particularly-funny.

This is pretty definitive of the campy science fiction movies that are just meant to be fun. In accordance with the campy aura, the film's main focus are a group of teenagers who hang out together, and whose camaraderie is indicative of such films, and could still be an inspiration. It's mostly just the same story: kids witness something from outer space, aren't believed, and solve the mystery themselves. Gobel plays a likable intelligent sort who is benevolent to the kids. One scene that makes this rank a level better than the usual is the "Goo Goo Ga" scene. A lot of hilarious bits, and make no mistake, this is what the movie is designed to do. It's appealing to see people behave in a civilized way to each other, as they do in this movie. And to be willing to help each other, again, is inspirational. Campy, but more assets than detriments.

This is one of those bad movies you gotta love. Cheesy effects, corny punchlines and monster so lame it wouldn't scare a 2 year old.

My Father (Lee Nelson)helped fund this movie for the director, some of my bedroom furniture was used in the old house, and as a "thank you" they put him in the movie as the animal control guy. He has a small part but always bragged about it. Sadly my father (Lee Nelson) passed away last year but I watch this movie from time to time to remember the good times.

If you get a chance, watch the Elvira episode where she tears this movie to shreds with her comments....funny stuff!

Here is a great piece of "bad film" heaven awaiting your rediscovery. The idea for this film is actually kinda cool: radiation from a meteorite which crashes in a swamp re-animates the corpse of a bumped-off gangster who goes around wreaking underlit havoc, namely in an old mansion that our teen protagonists decide to spend a weekend in. This premise might have actually worked were it not for the pitiful excuse for a monster-- some guy in a black jumpsuit with a rubber skull, that you could get at K-Mart for Halloween, which is half torn off. The film's heart is in the right place though-- it has the feel of a bunch of buddies getting together and doing their own tribute to 1950's sci-fi. And the picture looks like someone's home movie too-- what do the avant-gardists say? "The home movie esthetic"? In any case, the film is by turns tedious and delightfully cheesy, and it has a way of staying with you afterwards.

But before we just consider this another film made with unknowns, George Gobel (undoubtedly hired for a weekend while "Hollywood Squares" was on hiatus) makes enough of a cameo appearance to put at least one name in the marquee of whatever drive-in may have played this. Consider too, that this film's creator actually went on to direct "Designing Women" and "Evening Shade" for television!! You just never know... THE DAY IT CAME TO EARTH used to be programmed on Elvira's old TV show. I don't know where they got this endearing obscurity, but applause applause.